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Amnesty: Mali holding children detainees as adults

The Associated Press
12 p.m. CDT August 22, 2014

File - In this file photo taken Thursday, Aug. 8, 2013, a Nigerian soldier patrols in an armored car, during Eid al-Fitr celebrations, in Maiduguri, Nigeria. Graphic new video footage from northeastern Nigeria shows the country's military carrying out abuses against civilians as part of their fight against the Islamic extremists of Boko Haram, Amnesty International said Tuesday, Aug. 5, 2014. The violence against civilians constitutes "war crimes," alleged Amnesty. One of the videos shows military personnel and civilian vigilantes calling five detainees from a row of 16 young men and boys, and then slitting their throats one by one before dumping the bodies into an open mass grave. The international human rights group described the civilian vigilantes as "state-sponsored militias."
(Photo:
AP Photo/Sunday Alamba, File
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BAMAKO, Mali — An international human rights group says children accused of belonging to armed militias in Mali and participating in the country's ongoing unrest are languishing in jails and being held alongside adults.

Amnesty International said Thursday that holding children with adults, often without access to lawyers or their families, violates international law.

Researchers who visited Mali in June interviewed seven detainees whom they suspect are minors. The Ministry of Justice told Amnesty it would look into the allegations.

The Amnesty report also criticized the conditions for all detainees and documented the deaths of two inmates.

Northern Mali fell under control of armed separatists and then al-Qaida-linked extremists following a military coup in 2012. A French-led intervention last year scattered the extremists, but some continue to sow violence across northern Mali.

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